Tis The Season
by The Illustrious Crackpot
Summary: It's that time of year again, and Bloo's complaining of a lack of snow while Mac is thinking about something a bit more complicated than the existence of a Santa Claus. Happy nondenominational holidays!


_A/N: I kinda had to rush to get this out on time, so I wasn't able to edit it as much as I would have liked...plus, I tried to combine two separate ideas into one fanfiction, and I think that just makes it a bit abrupt-seeming with the two distinctly different concepts, as hard as I tried to connect them together. And the pacing's REALLY off—actually, EVERYTHING seems to happen really abruptly or just really slowly. AND it's heavily dialogue-based, which is never really a good sign for me. AND even though I tried not to make it a clone of "Midnight And A Full Moon", a lot of little similarities slipped in there. So, basically, this is a far cry from the best I can do, but hopefully you'll give it a chance anyways._

_...As well, even though the most-referenced holiday in this fic is Christmas, it's really not about that celebration specifically; it's about the whole season and all winter holidays in general. And, in addition, let it be known that this is _NOT_ a BlooXMac fic—if you want to read that into it, fine, that's _your_ business, but I didn't write it with those intentions in mind._

'**Tis The Season**

(The Illustrious Crackpot)

"AAAAAAUGH!! Why won't it _snow?!_"

The small, blue Imaginary Friend threw his arms into the air in disgust, glaring venomously up at the sky. It absorbed his gaze impassively, remaining dully gray, the blotchy clouds stalwartly refusing to open up and fulfill his demand.

"Come _ooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnn_..." Bloo whined, slouching forwards on the porch he was sitting on. "Just a few measly _feet_, is that too much to ask?!? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?"

Realizing that begging was having no effect, he flailed his arms angrily, nearly dislodging the scarf wound around his neck. "Aw, come _onnnn _ALREADY!!!!! What a total _ripoff!_"

The boy seated next to him stared at the sky as well, though he remained substantially more quiet than his companion. Surprising as it was, he thought, Bloo _was_ sort of right—December without snow was really just November, except much colder and _much_ yuckier.

"You'd think it'd at _least_ snow for Christmas Eve," Mac murmured softly, rubbing his mittened hands together. He exhaled, a small wisp of crystallized air escaping his mouth only to disappear. "It...it just kinda doesn't seem _right_ without snow."

"_Duhhhh!_" Bloo turned to his Creator, his expression clearly reading that he simply couldn't _believe_ how everyone in the world besides _him_ could be so dense. "Like, how're we gonna SNOWBOARD without SNOW? And _EVERYONE_ knows that snowboarding is the best thing about _Christmas!_"

"Oh, _Bloo_..." Mac sighed heavily, forming another cloud of ice crystals that dissipated within a single instant. "First of all, no it's _not_. And secondly, sledding down a hill in an empty pizza box _isn't_ snowboarding."

There was a short pause as Bloo just looked at Mac blankly. "Well, of COURSE that's not _snowboarding!_" he snapped at length, spreading his arms. "Jeez, what, do you think I'm THAT _stupid?_"

Deciding that _answering_ that question would be more trouble than it would be worth, Mac just went on with his explanation. "Bloo, you just don't _get_ it..." Twisting around, the boy picked up an unfolded, tray-shaped piece of cardboard, which had been lying on the porch behind him, and held it out to Bloo. "We were going to sled down a hill in an empty pizza box, _not_ snowboard."

Another pause.

"_WHAT?!?_" Bloo demanded shrilly, snatching the box away from Mac and frantically inspecting it at every possible angle, turning it up and down and staring at every cranny as if trying desperately to find some proof that it could not and _did_ not exist. "You told me we were going SNOWBOARDING!"

Mac shook his head slowly, taking the box back before Bloo could rip it. "Nnnnnnnnnno, I _didn't_."

"Yes you DID! You _totally_ did!!! It was like _yesterday_, and you were all 'Hey, Bloo, let's go snowboarding and pick up some chicks!' And I was all, 'YEEEEEEAH, this's gonna be _awesome!_' and you were all 'Let's do it tomorrow and stuff, dude-io'!" The Imaginary Friend's voice had been growing progressively louder as he ranted, and his excessive hand (appendage?) gestures became more and more exaggerated. "_You can't deny it!!_"

For a short while, his only response from his Creator was an incredulous, glassy-eyed stare. "...Okay, now I _know_ it's a bad idea to try to have a conversation with you when you're watching TV," Mac said finally, before adding under his breath, "_Why would I want to 'pick up chicks' anyways?_"

Bloo openly scoffed at him, crossing his arms superiorly. "Oh, sure, blame _me_ for wanting to cool-ify my nerdy Creator! If anything, you should be _thanking_ me, for raising your self-_esteeeeeem!_"

"How does misquoting me raise my _self-esteem?_" Mac demanded, voice cracking as a somewhat pleading tone slipped in. Why couldn't Bloo just admit that he was wrong, for _once_ in his lifetime?! "If anything, it _lowers_ my self-esteem, 'cus it lets me know that you don't pay any _attention_ to me!"

Panting from the outburst, Mac looked back over at his Imaginary Friend, who was staring up at the sky again in total silence. Then with a jolt, as if only just realizing that the boy was there, Bloo turned back to his Creator and inquired innocently, "Did you say something?"

"_Arrrrgh!_"

Ruffling his hair with almost worrying force, Mac fell onto his back, making a hollow-sounding _thunk_ reverberate through the wooden porch. With a final groan, and the knowledge that Bloo was again sky-watching rather than paying him any mind, he decided to just drop the argument—fighting with Bloo never got you anywhere, since he _always_ had SOMETHING to shoot back.

"Besides, it's not like we can even _go_ pizza-sledding anyways without _snow_."

Bloo nodded slowly, eyes still riveted on the sky. "Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh..."

Silence reigned once again as boy and Friend just gazed at the impassive gray clouds, waiting patiently for white flakes, for snow, for winter, for Christmas, for—

"C'MON, _SNOW_ ALREADY!!" Bloo screeched, tearing off his scarf and snapping it at the sky like he thought he could _whip_ the snow out of it. "JUST! GIVE! UP! AND! _SNOW! __**GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!**_ WOULD IT _KILL_ YOU TO JUST _SNOW_, YOU STUPID—"

Mac bore the tirade out patiently, rolling his eyes when Bloo's threats started getting more and more ludicrous—"...AND YOU KNOW WHAT? _I KNOW THE WEATHERMAN_, CLOUDS! OH, NOT SO HIGH-AND-_MIGHTY_ NOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT **I CAN CONTROL YOU WITH HIS WEATHER-MASTERING POWERS!!**..."—and eventually shifting onto his side, his back to Bloo, in an effort to block out the constant stream of inane demands. He waited, ear pressed against the flaps of his woolen cap pressed against the nearly-frozen wood of the porch of the Victorian mansion, still breathing quietly. At last, after nearly five minutes, when the cold had already brought a red glow to Mac's cheeks and the uninterrupted discourse had sent all air whooshing from Bloo's lungs, silence descended once more, broken only by a haggard panting and wheezing.

"So," Bloo suddenly started in brightly, plopping himself back onto the porch beside Mac, "what presents did'ja ask for this year?"

The boy's shoulders tensed, but Bloo didn't notice, as entirely focused as he was on Mac's prone form. "Ummmm..." Mac ventured cautiously, voice once more cracking ever-so-slightly as he fixed his gaze on some pattern in the porch's wood grain, "what...did..._you_ ask for this year?"

"What _didn't_ I ask for, ya mean!" Not even detecting the obvious evasion, Bloo immediately became immersed in his fantasies, flailing his arms this way and that in a pantomime of his plans for the following morning. "Well, I _already_ know that Santa's bringing me a red-and-white, stripes-down-the-middle, flames-on-the-sides, Two-Thousand-X Convertible Snowmobile™, since he obviously _forgot_ to bring it last year...actually, that whole mix-up with giving me _someone else's_ coal means that I'm, like, entitled to TWICE the presents _this_ year, and it is gonna be so-o-_o_-o SAH-WEET! I mean, once I've got the snowmobile, I'm gonna be setting up SUPER-TRICKY-MAD-SKILLZ trails on my _personal planet_—I asked the fat man to just put the _deed_ in my stocking, I mean, there's no WAY he's stuffin' a _PLANET_ down that chimney—and then after that I think I'll go tour my _paddleball factory_, and maybe swim in my SODA LAKE, and then...man oh MAN am I gonna have the best Christmas _ever!_" He paused, then looked up at the sky. "Well...if it'll actually _snow_, I mean. BUT I'LL FIND A WAY TO _MAKE_ IT SNOW!!!"

Mac remained where he lay, unusually stiff, and hoped fervently that his Friend had forgotten the original question.

"So then, yeah, what'd _you_ ask for?"

So much for _that_ idea.

The boy curled into a ball, arms wound tightly around his legs, mind racing to come up with some excuse. This was _worse_ than no snow—he hadn't wanted Bloo to ask the question, he hadn't wanted to have to _deal_ with it, he only wanted the skies to let down some drifts so they could go pizza-box-sledding before he had to go home at six for dinner...

"WeeeeeeEEEEEEELLLLlll? Earth to Maccy-boy, he-LLO-o! I _so_ know you're not frozen, 'cus if you were, you wouldn't be..._NOT_-FROZEN!"

"...Mmmfght," Mac mumbled, turning his face into the edge of his cap.

Bloo cocked his head, leaning closer to his Creator. "Wassat?"

"_Rrnnftnnft_."

"No, seriously, I can't hear ya, man."

At last, utterly fed up, Mac flopped onto his back, eyes screwed shut in an attempt to ward off any unwanted attentions. "_NOTHING_, OK? I ASKED FOR _NOTHING!_"

After a moment of shocked silence, Bloo waved a cautious "hand" in front of the boy's face. "Hey...hey, buddy..." he inquired slowly, a rare note of concern in his voice, "are you all _right?_"

"YESI'MFINE!" Mac snapped in a single breath.

Bloo continued to wave down at him, even though Mac's eyes were still closed—then, remembering something he'd once seen the boy's mother doing, attempted to check his forehead for fever. "And you _really_ asked for NOTHING?" the Friend went on in a hushed voice, as if afraid that this blasphemy might be overheard. This concept he was being introduced to seemed absolutely _overpowering_.

"_YES!_"

Deciding that Mac showed no symptoms of sickness, Bloo instead paused, rubbing his head as he thought this over incredulously. Then some sort of dawning comprehension lit up his eyes, and a huge grin spread across his face. "Ohhhhhhhh, _I_ get ittttt..." he exhaled slowly, then nearly leapt into the air. "You're trying to look selfless for your mom so she'll think you're _really_ cool and give you MORE presents! That's GENIUS! Why didn't _I_ think of that?!?"

"_No_, Bloo, it's _nothing_ like that!" Mac finally sat up, feeling queasy as he watched Bloo revel in the "brilliance" of such a plot. _This_ was why he hadn't wanted Bloo to know...it was bad _enough_ having TERRENCE accusing him! "I _really_ don't want any presents this year! I even told my mom _not_ to get me any!"

Bloo paused again, but only for a moment. "_Ahhhh_...you just want SANTA to cough up, eh?" He jabbed a blobby appendage into Mac's chest approvingly. "I like your style, kid. You get as much loot as you want and your mom _loves_ you for costing so little!"

"AUUUUUUGH! _NO!_"

With sudden, unexpected ferocity, Mac shoved Bloo away from him, instead collapsing against the porch railing, resting his head against the posts. Bloo, looking somewhat affronted, raised an eyebrow at him, unsure of what was going on. "Dude, what's your _problem?_"

"I don't _want_ any presents," Mac repeated dully, fists clenching the rails like his last lifelines. "That's _not_ what Christmas is about, Bloo! I don't...I don't..." He shut his eyes, letting his forehead grate against the smooth wood. "I don't want to feel like I'm being _bribed_."

"_Pssssshht!_" Bloo dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand. "If _that's_ bribery, then BRIBE ME, baby, BRIBE ME!"

"_No!_ It's just...so STUPID!" Mac closed his eyes again, his insides reeling with confusion. These were concepts too _huge_ for a nine-year-old to figure out on his own...why had he been dragged into this conversation? He should have been wishing for snow to play in, not having some pseudo-capitalistic argument with his greedy best friend! Why wouldn't it _snow_, just let out some _snow_, distract Bloo from the question and give them back their opportunity to act like the children they were?

"That's not what this season is _about_, Bloo..." he forced out. "I mean, everywhere I go, I see ads with Santa in them, and commercials with Santa in them, and all sorts of things that they _say_ are about Christmas but are really about _selling_ things!" Mac lifted his gaze to his Friend's, feeling helplessness overcome him as he battled the beliefs he'd always held and the new ones forced on him every day. "Bloo, how can I accept twenty-dollar action figures for free when I know that there are other kids out there who won't even have a decent _dinner?_"

Bloo shrugged as best as he could, given his anatomy. "Don't think about 'em."

"But I—"

"_Look_," Bloo began in a somewhat reprimanding tone, his eyes nearly boring holes into the boy's, "it _doesn't matter_ what happens to other people. If THEY'RE not gonna get an overweight elf mucking about under _their_ tree, well, that's not YOUR problem." Stepping backwards a little, he pointed towards the sky. "Now if you'll just help me perform the ritualistic dance to the gods of snow, we _might_ be able to get enough of the white stuff on the ground to go snowboarding."

"Pizza-sledding," Mac corrected automatically, gaze fixed on the ground in front of him.

"_Snowboarding_."

All was silent once more as Bloo, his short attention span having already moved him onto another topic, began to do what looked like a rhumba that had gotten in an auto accident with a salsa dance. But Mac remained standing there, his arms down by his sides, dozens of thoughts struggling to escape his lips.

"...Not it."

Bloo froze mid-step, blinking at Mac. "Huh?"

"That's not it, either." He lifted his eyes back to Bloo's, trying to pour these strange thoughts right into his Friend, to help him _understand_, to help _both_ of them understand. "Bloo...Bloo, Christmas isn't _about_ gifts. Or even snow. I mean, Christmas is only connected with snow at _all_ 'cus it's a tradition to celebrate it around this time of year. Christmas..." Mac shook his head. "No, not _even_ Christmas—ALL the holidays people celebrate this time of year, like Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Ramadan, or...or...or even if they _don't_ celebrate anything at _all_. It doesn't _matter_ if people buy you things. It just doesn't MATTER if it doesn't snow. It..."

Mac let out a breath that he hadn't known he'd been holding.

"It's about being with the people you love."

All of a sudden, Mac became startlingly aware of a strange, hiccuping noise emitting from the Imaginary Friend before him. Wonder of wonders, Bloo's face was buried in his arms, his entire form shuddering like prodded JELL-O as he let out muffled whimpers. "Bloo!" Mac gasped, amazed that his words had had such a profound effect on his Friend—and also slightly worried. He placed his hands on the closest approximation of Bloo's shoulders, trying to steady him. "Bloo...Bloo, are you all—"

"_BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!_" Bloo finally exploded, tears of mirth cascading down his cheeks. "WAHAHAHAHAHA!! AW, _MAN_, MAC, IS THAT A **GOOD** ONE! _GWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA_...GEEZ, FOR A SECOND I THOUGHT YOU WERE _SERIOUS_—"

There was a sharp _click_ as the door behind them eased open, interrupting Bloo's hysteria and Mac's growing sense of futility. A tall, redheaded young woman, bundled tightly in an emerald-green coat, stepped out onto the porch, a radiant grin on her face. The door she held open with a sneakered foot, as both her hands were occupied with two steaming white mugs.

"Hey, guys!" Frankie breezed breathlessly, moving her leg and letting the door swing shut. She held the two mugs out to Mac and Bloo, who stood frozen, staring up at her, the boy still gripping his Friend. "Still waiting for that snow, huh? Thought you might want some hot cocoa to pass the time."

Still a bit stunned, the two accepted the offering, staring down into the creamy brown depths of their treats.

"Thank y—" Mac began, but was cut off by a substantially louder _bang!_ as the door was flung wide open to admit more visitors.

"_Hola_, Señor Mac! _Hola_, Azul!" cried the raspy voice of a large, purple bull-like Friend, his heavy footsteps echoing across the porch as he walked out. "_Todavía no hay nieve...ay yi yi, es MUY málo_."

"Yeah, that _is_ pretty bad," agreed his tall, red companion, smiling down at the pair even more widely than Frankie. A pile of thick, green blankets was draped over his one remaining arm. "But hey, if we're _real_ lucky, maybe it'll start snowing soon, and then we can play a while before Mac has to go home!"

Another Friend, who looked like some combination of a bird, a tree and an airplane, burst straight out of the house and began running in circles, shouting, "COCOCOCOCOCOCOCO!!" In one swift movement, Coco used her beak to flip Mac and Bloo onto her back, where Wilt deftly wrapped a pair of blankets around them both before Eduardo reached up and placed them back on the porch.

"Yup, that _definitely_ looks like a snow sky," Wilt remarked encouragingly, plopping himself onto the porch and wrapping an arm around the boy and his Friend, both absolutely overwhelmed by this rapid change in their environment. "You know what? I wouldn't be surprised if it started to snow _any minute_ now!"

"_¡Sí!_" Sitting down on their other side, Eduardo carefully tucked their blankets in more firmly before taking his own from Wilt, settling down for the wait. "And if there _is_ no snow, then we is still warm and toasty, _¿no?_"

"Cococo!"

And with that, the new group of Imaginary Friends began to chatter aimlessly, bringing up such unrelated subjects as the latest sports match to the decorations on the Foster's Christmas tree to the movies they wanted to watch to how much they enjoyed being able to sit there on the porch and talk about things. Still beaming, Frankie excused herself to bring out more snacks, and after a loud, chorused "THANK YOU!" the chatter was resumed at even stranger subjects than the ones that had preceded them.

Only Bloo sat in silence, glancing confusedly from his steaming drink to the snowless sky above, wondering how on Earth all that had happened so fast.

"Bloo."

The word was spoken quietly, and the small mittened hand that patted him affectionately on the head was warm—warmer, somehow, than the hot chocolate.

"Look around you, Bloo," Mac continued, face still flushed from the cold, but his expression was that of the utmost content. "Isn't _this_ better than having a soda lake, or even your own planet?"

Bloo began a heated, scornful reply, but was cut off as Wilt leaned too far over and narrowly brushed against the small, blue Friend. The contact made his skin tingle, and suddenly the very _atmosphere_ started to tingle, and he stared back into his cup.

High up, far above the heads of the lively group, higher even than the tip of the austere mansion, a single snowflake slipped out from between the clouds and drifted placidly to the earth, reaching the frozen porch just as the little Imaginary Friend let out a mumble almost too soft to hear.

"...I love you guys..."

_Fin_


End file.
